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Speaker Series

Planning Learning-Centered Communities: Where Urban Design Meets Learning Sciences

Wade Berger.

Sept. 11, 2025
Lockwood 205 | 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Lunch will be provided

Wade Berger, PhD, will introduce community-wide infrastructuring as a framework for studying how hidden systems like transportation, scheduling, relationships and funding shape access to learning across communities. His talk extends theories of infrastructuring to the scale of neighborhoods and cities, showing how these systems influence equity and participation in learning ecosystems. He will share examples and visual models that connect this work to ongoing questions about how we intervene in community-wide ways and work to design learning-centered communities.

Bio: Wade Berger is a Learning Sciences researcher whose agenda spans informal learning, community-based partnerships and the infrastructures that shape access to educational opportunity. His work includes studies of museum education, teen learning programs and the professional development of informal educators, with publications in venues such as the Journal of Museum Education and the International Conference of the Learning Sciences. Recently, he has helped advance the concept of “community-wide infrastructuring,” examining how hidden systems like transportation, scheduling and organizational networks affect where and how learning happens. Previously, Wade managed teen learning at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, where he helped develop and sustain innovative youth programs. Wade has a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University and Master's in Video Games and Learning from UW-Madison. He comes to UB to connect research in the Learning Sciences with urban and community planning, opening new conversations about what it would mean to design communities that are learning-centered.

Virtual Reality Workshop

How are Educators Exploring and Implementing Future Technology?

Sept. 27, 2025
Lockwood 205, National AI Institute for Exceptional Education | UB North Campus
10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Lunch will be provided

Come to the University at Buffalo to explore applications of virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality as a learning tool. We’ll have some introductory lectures from experts and time for hands-on demos, plus networking over lunch

Attendees can park in the lot adjacent to the Jacobs Management Center (off Augspurger Road) and enter the Lockwood Memorial Library. Campus Map

PLEASE NOTE: SPACE IS LIMITED TO 30 PEOPLE

Featuring

Mohamed Etman, Assistant Professor, Director of the Building Environment Visualization Lab, UB School of Architecture and Planning.

Mohamed Etman, PhD
School of Architecture and Planning
University at Buffalo

Alex Fernandez Owner and Founder of VRBuffalo LLC, Immersive media and learning tools in education.

Alex Fernandez
Owner and Founder
VRBuffalo LLC

Erin Kearney, PhD Educational Linguistics; Language Teaching and Learning; Interculturality; Design of Learning Environments (VR); Teacher Preparation and Learning.

Erin Kearney, PhD
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo

David Pape.

David Pape, PhD
Department of Media Study
University at Buffalo

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